Manchester City refusing to give up Premier League title hopes despite draw at Norwich – Manuel Pellegrini

The Chilean coach had said his side would need to win at least nine of their remaining ten games to catch Leicester, so victory at Carrow Road’s Canaries was a must.

But Alex Neil’s relegation-threatened side showed spirit with a steadfast performance, and actually created the better chances in a 0-0 stalemate.

City have not won back-to-back Premier League games since October.

The point may prove a platform for Norwich to escape the danger zone, but it did little for City, who are still nine points behind the table-topping Foxes.

Pellegrini, however, has not given up.

“Every time you drop points it can be more difficult, but that will not change my mind,” the City boss said.

“If you mathematically have a chance to do it, you must always think you can do it. If you ask me before the first game of the season what we must do, we must try to win all the games and we continue with the same mentality.

“And at the end of the season we’ll see how many points we can have and in which position we’ll be.”

Despite the result, Pellegrini was pleased with the manner of his side’s performance.

“We started from the first minute of the game trying to score, but we couldn’t,” he added.

“We had a very good attitude, very good possession, but we couldn’t create the space that we needed in the last third.

“What we normally do in an easy way, today we couldn’t do it. We normally create space and score goals. Today Norwich defended very well. We tried different ways to create space, but we couldn’t.”

City now turn their attentions to Tuesday’s Champions League last-16 second leg with Dynamo Kiev before next Sunday’s Premier League derby with Manchester United.

“The most important thing now is to be focused on the Champions League game we have to play on Tuesday, to try to qualify for the next stage,” Pellegrini added.

“After that we have to play against Manchester United on Sunday and try to win again the three points.”